Several months ago, Olaf Diegel, a professor from Sweden’s University of Lund, debuted his incredible 3D-printed aluminum guitar. The guitar—a truly beautiful instrument that was decked out in barbed wire and roses—was the world’s first 3D printed aluminum ax. Now there’s a clip of it in action.

The guitar, better known as the Heavy Metal, grew out of Diegel’s desire to test metal 3D printing.

“[I also wanted] to better understand the intricacies of the whole process, from ‘design for additive manufacturing’, to the actual 3D printing of the guitar, to the post-processing that is required to go from a 3D-printed metal part straight of the machine to a usable masterpiece,” Diegel said.

To print the guitar, Diegel turned to Xilloc, a company known for its 3D-printing breakthroughs with metal, ceramics and carbon fiber.

Mike Rawson

Mike Rawson has recently re-awoken a long-standing interest in robots and our automated future.
He lives in London with a single android - a temperamental vacuum cleaner - but is looking forward to getting more cyborgs soon.